


Serpens

by LNJames



Series: Suddenly Everything Has Changed [16]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-06-15 03:33:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19603123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LNJames/pseuds/LNJames
Summary: Lena Luthor must sort out all the damage done by Lex Luthor and the Agents of Liberty to her friends, to the country, and to Kara Danvers. Sometimes it's easier to forget than to forgive.Season 4 re-imagined. Season 5 gently hinted. Canon-ish, with liberties and justice for all.





	1. Alpha Serpentis

_I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room_  
_where everyone finally gets what they want._  
_You said Tell me about your books, your visions made_  
_of flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This is_  
_the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you_  
_there. - R. Siken_

She thought it wasn’t possible to feel such exquisite and precise pain again. Everything to now had been dulled and persistent, chronic and diffused. It had been that way since she joined the Luthor family proper, small things leading up to the weight of injury that she had learned to bear in order to become stronger than the cause. Lena Luthor was a master at it now, absorbing blows and enduring breaks. She had learned that pain came in many forms - the easiest was on the outside, visible and bandaided until the body healed itself. She’d take a million paper cuts in exchange for what she had received from Lex. Beloved brother. Madman. Someone who had studied her more than anyone else and who had used that to deliver the worst cut of all.

She knew now, of course. As hard as Lena had tried to forget and to keep secrets safe from Lex and from her own stubborn, hopeful brain, the truth always hurt. This time, though, it was the bittersweet pain of realizing what she had lost by choice, what she took from herself because of her name. If she had been anyone else, someone not named Lena Luthor, she could have had everything she wanted. She could have lived in the gold room. If she had been anyone else, Lena wouldn’t have had to remove the memory of Kara from her head, she wouldn’t have had to resort to injecting herself, again, with the poison of forgetting, and she wouldn’t have to feel the acute, searing pain of remembering.

The science of it was simple: 1) re-image her brain connectome to update the map of three years worth of memories of Kara; 2) parcellate out the fMRI vectors that included the Kara she had fallen in love with and the Kara that was Supergirl; 3) be mindful of the overlap so calculate a predictive model of the coordinates that were in both; 4) add up the numbers of her relationship with Kara Danvers, Supergirl, AND Kara Zor-El; 4a) [include an unknown number to represent a lost soul torn from previous three and cruelly used and destroyed by one Lex Luthor]; 5) develop an equation to account for every single tiny bright spot in her brain that lit up with any one of those numbers, including the space between held by a mathematical sign - all the pluses and minuses, divisors and multipliers - connecting them all; 6) make a magic potion of hydrolase with the right alchemical mix to cleave out her feelings and separate her head from her heart; 6a) don’t forget to add a secret ingredient to erase the way her traitorous, hopeful heart beat when hands reached for her, when sparks skimmed from fingertips to her skin, how light fooled her, how warmth felt when eyes of lapis lazuli looked at her, how the hot of hot burned blue; 7) etch a nano-backup of every number, every equation, every feeling, every memory on to a talisman, a memory-keep for eternity made of the hardest substance she could get her hands on, a lonsdaleite key and the last of its kind; and finally, finally 8) inject herself with the dark magic of a biochemical dephosphorylation potion to excise the parts of her that made her better - _one Mississippi_ , erase the gold room where she loved Kara without having to hide the key from her family - _two Mississippi_ , and forget and forget and forget - _three Mississippi_.

Simple. Elegant. Exquisite.

The only problem with Lena Luthor’s plan had been to not account for the pain when it failed.

***

National City went about its business, mid-morning in full swing with the hustle of downtown noises and activity buzzing on the streets. She could hear it from where she stood, vibrating up through columns of steel and glass and the buildings that she owned and those she didn’t. Lena stood on her white balcony in the place she felt most centered despite everything. L-Corp was, for better or for worse, home now in a way CatCo never would be. At least in these walls, everything was remade by her hands, refocused on solving the unsolvable. While the power of the news and the truth was what had released the city and the nation from the so-called Agents of Liberty, it was never where Lena felt comfortable. Here, at least, she could brood in silence far above it all and pretend everything was alright.

It’s what she had done Friday night, steeling herself with a fake smile, bottles of wine in tow, and the pain of knowing ripping through her, slicing at the cellular level. Not to mention the fact that she had shot her brother, Lex Luthor, and left him for dead right before changing into weekend jeans like nothing happened. Just another game night with her pal Kara and friends. As if Lena could ever be someone who could have a normal life with friends who smiled at her but could never see inside. And then there was Kara. The Kara she had tried to forget, the one who conspired with her and against her in the name of love and safety, the one who tearfully agreed to let Lena go ahead with her plan and be just like Alex, oblivion by other means but mindwiped strangers to Kara’s identify and heart all the same. Now, Lena was left with the aftermath. Who could blame her for day drinking? It was the least of her demons.

“Isn’t it a bit early for wine, Ms. Luthor?”

At the voice, Lena took in a deep breath before she turned to the only person she cared to be around. Her half-honest text of _I’m fine_ this morning had brought a visitor to her c-suite in the sky.

“Jess.”

She watched her former executive assistant, former _Pollinate Peace_ non-profit executive director, and now newly named L-Corp Chief of Staff walk across her office to the balcony with a smile on her face. Lena gave her a head tilt and a wan smile.

“Don’t judge. Please.”

Jess Tran was one of the few people left who knew her before she fell back in love with Kara Danvers, after she forgot a golden girl from the stars, but before she wiped out three years of memories of falling in love again. It was complicated. It was messy. It would be silly to call it anything but a complicated mess. Lena hated what she had done in the name of love. Jess was the only one left who knew other kinds of secrets about Lena but had never betrayed a single one. If anyone would understand who she was right now, in this jolting state of knowing what she had lost and how Lex had cruelly given it all back like a golden sword through the heart, it would be Jess. And nevermind how relieved she was to see someone who was not Eve approaching her at work like a trusted confidant. So many things to unpack, so many little breaks and tears on the inside, so many loose connections in her brain to sew back into something whole. Lena was paying the price for playing with magic and trying to cure what could ail the human body and make it weak.

“You know I would never.”

Jess’ voice was warm and kind. She too had grown in the years she had stayed ever-loyal to Lena, learning the ins and outs of executive life, managing the people around it, and taking care of business in ways practical and discreet. She was perfect for her new job and when Lena had approached her at the L-Corp funded non-profit corporation created to do good in the world, Jess hadn’t hesitated with her answer. In Lena’s world, there remained only few who had not betrayed her in some way. She’d take it, after this year.

“That’s one of the things I love about you, Jess.”

Her former assistant joined her at the balcony and they both turned to the city.

“Wanna talk about it?”

Most people wouldn’t ask Lena Luthor that question and those who would were either gone or too close to the situation to be objective. She might have confided in Jack and talked through the science of her experience with someone who understood what it meant to be obsessed with finding an answer until it destroyed a person. He likely would have warned against another, more extensive trial of what he called her _potio immemores_ to tease even when his eyes cautioned. She might have talked to Sam, but the lingering effects of what they went through together with Reign made it too close to the bone. Maggie had quietly left National City, detaching herself from Alex and their circle for a promotion in Gotham. Querl Dox was nice and brilliant and insightful in the ways of the mind and one day, she’d discuss this more with him, but like everyone else around her now, they were all too close to Kara Danvers for Lena to find someone objective enough. If she couldn’t find objectivitely, she’d gladly settle for proven loyalty.

“Is this how my new Chief of Staff is going to manage up? Asking me to talk about my feelings?”

Her voice held fondness and amusement as she took another drink of the best bottle of white wine she could find chilled in her stocked office bar. It was too early for red and far too late for scotch so she settled for what quenched the tightness in her throat and allowed her to swallow what had happened to her without choking. She certainly hadn’t needed Lex to remind her of the Luthor propensity for such things, as if she inherited it by genes instead of osmosis and need.

“Well, that’s always been kind of my job, Ms Luthor, whether you knew it or not. I’m pretty good at listening to you.”

She saw Jess in the corner of her eye, watching her and she sighed. She certainly didn’t know where to start, where the beginning of her story began. How could she ever explain everything in a way that made sense, especially the parts that hurt the most right now? The side effects of being in love with Kara Danvers were not linear or predictable.

“You know, if we’re going to talk about my feelings, you’re going to have to call me by my name.”

She smiled at Jess before glancing back out to the city, her fingers hanging on to a glass that dangled over the street below. Jess chuckled and clasped her hands in front of her, turning to look where Lena now looked. CatCo Worldwide Media - all shiny and reflecting the sun, a golden building in a dirty city. Metaphor writ large. Cause of and solution to all things weighing on her heart right now.

“There is absolutely no way I am calling you anything other than Ms. Luthor. That’d be too weird.”

“Well, I appreciate your honesty if nothing else.”

Jess laughed again and looked at her.

“You will always have that from me. So I’ve gathered that the last year I’ve been away has been..challenging. Trying to run two companies...”

Lena took the last swallow of viognier and ran a hand through her hair, loosened from the tight bun she usually wore at work because her head still hurt in more ways than one. She shifted on navy heels to match her dress and glanced back at Jess with a rueful smile.

“That was the easy part. Running a profitable business has never been my problem.”

“Mmm..true. But you hired me back because businesses come with people and people come with lots of things that can cause feelings.”

“They do.”

She closed her eyes as the sun continued to shine and National City tried to settle down into something close to normal after a year that almost tore the country apart at the seams. The city would be alright, stone and concrete and glass were immune to hate and betrayal and loss and love. Some days she was the city and some days she was the ruins.

“So, it’s a Monday in June, not quite lunch, and you’ve already broken into that bottle of La Chattilonne I ordered for you on my third day on the job. The one you told me to save for special occasions, “celebrations only” if I recall your specific words. What are we celebrating?”

Lena let her head roll to the side and raised an eyebrow at Jess.

“Remind me to never tell you anything again. You have a memory like a steel trap.”

“All the better to keep you out of trouble with, Ms. Luthor.”

She reached up and rubbed her hand over her brows, shaking her head.

“What have I done? You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?”

And by this, Lena meant push her in subtle ways that only someone as close as Jess could, with the history they had. The question was whether she wanted the gentle nudging towards what troubled her mind now. Somewhere inside, she knew she had reached out to Jess for a reason, other than securing more loyal staff with access to her and the experience to manage what it meant to be Lena Luthor stretched thin across two companies and a world of hurt.

“I am. You hired me and I care about you. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive and that hasn’t changed. I’m here to help in whatever way I can. I can only do that if you let me.”

She sighed, feeling her shoulders sink at the weight of what she carried inside. It was heavy and full of little Luthor bombs waiting to go off, planted by Lex, by Lillian, by Lionel, by Lena herself. As brilliant as the family may be, their proclivity towards self-destructive behavior and deadly choices was legendary. Lena looked at Jess, so young still, so unburdened by the way life could turn.

“You can’t be my therapist, Jess.”

“I don’t intend to be, Ms. Luthor. But I can be what I’ve always been. Here for you.”

Lena looked at her and felt a glimmer of something she had in short supply after Lex, after Kara, after what the Harun-El had wrought and the damage she had done to the parts of her head and her heart that softened her. She wanted it all back. She wanted to feel hopeful again and happy and at peace. And Lena wanted Kara back, in all her complicated messy glory. The only way out was through.

“I’m not sure I can do this anymore.”

She voiced a fear on the wind in a whisper, more to herself than to the woman who stood next to her. Lena felt a hand on her arm and she took a deep breath.

“You can. I believe in you.”

“You make me sound like some kind of hero and I am far, far from that.”

“Lena, you are you and that is enough.”

At Jess’ words, Lena squeezed her eyes shut even when she knew it meant that she’d see two shots from a gun ring out into her brother’s chest, even when she knew it meant she’d see a video of Kara becoming Supergirl and re-learning a painful secret that she had purposely forgotten. And she knew it meant seeing not double, but triple, Kara’s face replicated and made mortal by Lex when Lena couldn’t save any of them. She puffed out a breath into the city air.

“I don’t know where to start.”

She felt herself being pulled and she walked carefully with Jess from the balcony to the couch in her office that held too many memories to be neutral anymore. At least the chess set was gone, she had thrown it in a box that morning first thing. They sat and Jess looked at her with a small smile on her face. Lena tried not to let everything drain out of her and go numb, her hand shaking as she put the empty wine glass on the table. Jess’ words were soft.

“We can start wherever you want.”

“I have so many meetings today..there’s so much work..”

It was her last ditch effort to change her own mind, to distract it with the business at hand and the calendar she kept to keep from thinking about everything on rewind like a movie in her brain. Jess shook her head gently and spoke resolutely.

“My first order of business was to clear your schedule and inform exec staff at both your companies to not interrupt us unless this building specifically was on fire. I hand picked one of my own people to be your new executive assistant and trust me, she learned from the best and I fully vetted her from birth to now. No one will get by her. And if they do, they’ll have to get through me.”

Lena let herself laugh, a hiccup really of relief from the ping-pong of tension bouncing back and forth in her head.

“Jess, how did I ever manage without you?”

“I don’t mean to be blunt, Ms. Luthor, but I have no idea.”

“Not well, if you want the truth.”

“The truth is a good place to start then, yeah?”

Lena let herself sink back against the couch, her fingers searching for something to do, intertwining with each other to keep the shake at bay while she focused on breathing. She looked over at Jess, brown eyes wiser than her years and ready to push in that gentle way she had. With a deep breath, Lena nodded. Maybe she should start at the center of it all and work her way out to where her memories blurred, where her magic potion of forgetting burned away some of the cells that connected her to something more steady. Lex could wait, he’d already done enough damage and she wasn’t ready to give him more of what he craved: her attention. Right now, Lena wanted to talk about what she kept losing, as if talking about it could save her.

“Then I think it’s time I talked about Kara.”


	2. Gliese

There was a time when none of this mattered. Or at least a time when she was innocent enough to think it didn’t matter what her name was or who the people in her family really were. She was five. She was already lost but any child would want to be found and so she hoped. To be that young and watch the only person who truly cared about you..disappear...was, to be fair and to be frank, pivotal. Lena Luthor used words like ‘pivotal’ to put a little distance between her and what happened to her. Over the years, she refined the words she used to be a little more clinical, a little more precise, but never too close to what it felt like to grow up in a family of cunning, cruel liars who betrayed, who manipulated, who made her feel things like she felt now. Alone. Utterly, completely alone in a room full of people who called her a friend or a boss or a villain.

And then there was the one who whispered that she was loved, in her ear and on her body. Kara. And every incarnation of the impossible, the miracle who fell from the stars, the magic superhero of Lena’s dreams. Kara haunted her. It was like she had a ghost inside the machine and the machine was her brain and the machine was her body and machines weren’t meant to love Kara like she did. When people disappointed her, she turned to technology. When technology failed, Lena turned on herself.

It was an act of love, she told herself. It was an act of sacrifice. What she had not counted on was how science could be cruel too. Forcing the brain to do something the heart doesn’t want felt like an open wound when Lena’s memories came flooding back in waves of untethered bitterness. She knew she shouldn’t feel the acid burn of betrayal eating her from the inside out. After all, Lena had kept her own secrets, kept things from people, kept things from Kara. No one gets out of this world alive without hidden things tucked deep inside that would hurt if exposed to the light of day. Ghosts and monsters, yes, but also tiny hopeful sparks of life, like microscopic foraminifera and radiolaria as if hearts were the Challenger Deep.

And after all, it was Lena’s own choice and her own plan to use science and technology on herself to remove feelings and memories. How else was she to keep Kara’s secret, their secret, safe from the Luthors?

**

_She remembered the conversation as if it were yesterday, the amazing byproduct of a sudden reversing of the dephosphorylation process in her brain. It was like a needle scratch on the record of Lena’s life. Neuroscience at its kindest and most cruel. Six months felt like a minute, 180 days past flew back into her brain like a second. Lena had tried to make Kara understand, tried to tell her that if was all for the best, that her brother Lex would stop at nothing to hurt the earth’s best superhero using Lena’s weakest, softest spot. Lex Luthor would use her memories to find the most painful way to torture Kara, and in the process, make Lena pay for trying to be the Luthor who got away. It hadn’t gone well._

_Lena watched as Kara closed her eyes and took in a deep breath before she spoke, doubt edging her voice._

_“You are going to effectively wipe your brain of ..us...to save me.”_

_In essence, that was the truth and Lena acknowledge it for what it was. Stripped bare, this was her grand plan: Map her brain, remove the best parts, and save Supergirl’s secret. Easy. Simple. Devastating._

_“Yes.”_

_She had tried to make Kara see what was so clear to her. Lex would stop at nothing and therefore, Lena had to be better, quicker, smarter. She would do whatever it took to stop him from the inside out. Inject herself with the science of forgetting, swirl a carefully formulated mix of hydrolase to the exact places in her brain where Kara lived. In an unforgiving process, she would remove memories of a superhero so her brother could not have them. How could she forget the way Kara’s eyes registered the implications of her plan. How could she forget the way Kara’s voice wavered in quiet realization._

_“Will your science take away what’s in your heart? What we are to each other?”_

_Lena was careful, she checked her numbers twice, three times, a million times. She would only erase the parts of her brain that held Kara’s secret identify. The tricky part was that she loved Kara no matter the name - Supergirl, Kara Danvers, Kara Zor-El - so she had to leave some things in her brain the same and change the rest. Keep her friend only and let go of a dream where she was in the gold room and could love all of Kara. As if that were easy, curing what ails the human heart. It had been her goal, but Lena never quite accounted for Kara. But she had to do what she had to do because Lex was already planning her worst nightmare. So when Kara asked whether her plan would take away the best parts of her life, Lena hadn’t answered._

**

It had been logical and clinical and reasonable and objective. The brain has no pain receptors. Cleaving out memories shouldn’t hurt. The acts of love and sacrifice didn’t hurt Lena, she’d do it again and again for Kara until the end of time. But the body remembered, the meninges and the periosteum, the dendrites and axons, the myelin and soma and every space in between had been filled with Kara. To remove Kara meant that loss and absence filled in the gaps, all that light was replaced by all that dark, it absorbed so deeply there was no way to know her numbers would add up to this.

“This” was the aftermath of re-remembering. “This” was the act of self-inflicted loss. “This” was the sudden rushing in of feelings removed and feelings unanchored by the truth. “This” was the unanticipated consequence of her experiment on herself to keep secrets because of her name.

Everything mattered now. Lex had destroyed it all with the sole purpose of hurting her because she dared to think she was different. She had hoped, deep down where no one else could see that she was not like the people who raised her. And yet. For all the good she did she had tempered it with what science wasn’t made to do. Lena had tried everything she could think of to think her way out of the inevitable. But the truth was that nothing was ever safe from the Luthors.

“I thought it would be easier..”

Now, in the noon light so bright and so far from the deepest place in the deepest ocean, Lena Luthor wondered if it had been worth it, after all.

“Which part?”

At Jess’ voice, Lena startled, realizing that she had said it out loud and that she wasn’t alone. She was in her office. She was at L-Corp. She was in National City. And she felt irrationally betrayed by Kara Danvers not telling her she was Supergirl because Lena herself had chosen to forget that part of her own story where she already knew this secret. She felt unexplainable things because she had fallen in love with Kara again after forgetting her the very first time. What right did she have to any of it when she herself chose a path of loss and she herself had done worse in the name of saving humans from pain? It was complicated. It was messy. It was a complicated mess.

“Sorry. Nothing.”

Lena lied because she had been caught off guard. Again. Too many times for taste because that meant it could happen again even if Lex Luthor was dead by her own hand. Messy.

“You know, you’re not a very good liar, Lena.”

And complicated. She was the best liar, point of fact. Lena took in a deep breath and turned her head towards Jess, both of them sitting on the couch in her office as if this were a normal conversation.

“I know.”

There was no use fighting it at this point, she had convinced herself of that. Lena might be lying to other people, but she had a hard time fooling herself. Which was also a lie.

“So maybe we start with the truth?”

Jess spoke softly as they both pretended this was the kind of conversation they had.

“Jess, I appreciate the sentiment and I appreciate that you came to talk with me. I’m just not sure now is the right time or place.”

It was always easier this way, to make excuses because how could she even start talking about Kara without talking about Lex and talking about Lex meant reliving the way the trigger felt when she pulled it and the way his face held delighted cruelty when he made her brain remember Kara’s secret. If she had done it right, she wouldn’t be where she was now, hovering in that liminal space between the shock of being told a secret that her friend Kara Danvers had kept from her on purpose and the searing disappointment that her solution hadn’t worked. The truth was so full of lies and so full of good intentions gone awry that Lena wasn’t sure what feeling she felt was real. It made it easier to step outside of herself and what she had done. Inside, though, she a tangled mess of conflicting feelings, neurons rewiring and holding her heart accountable for something she wanted but could not safely have.

“I know what you did.”

At Jess’ words, Lena turned her head towards her former assistant and was sure it held the venom she had no right to spit.

“You know nothing of what I have done or why.”

To her credit, Jess didn’t flinch because she had seen Lena at her best and at her worst.

“I know you have been conducting human trials on new technology. I know L-Corp paid next of kin fees to the family of Adam Johnston. I know you were trying to find a way to help Supergirl.”

Lena couldn’t help but let out a low laugh as she leaned forward and put her head in her hand.

“Oh Jess.”

“I would prefer if you didn’t ‘Oh Jess’ me, Miss Luthor. I know where you keep lab records in this company. If I’m going to come back here as your Chief of Staff, you can’t keep things from me.”

Lena stood and felt a little unsteady on her legs as she walked across her office towards the bar. She had never been a glass half full type of person and the bottle chilling in the mid-morning of National City’s workday called her name. The ache in her head asked for relief and she knew no other way. The cool neck of the wine bottle in her hand and the weight of it was no match for the weight of her secrets. She grabbed another glass for Jess knowing she would never drink from it, but it made her feel a little less alone anyway.

“You know, Eve Teschmacher never gave me this kind of trouble until the day she tried to kill me.”

She poured herself another glass of côte-rôtie with a rueful smile on her face until she saw Jess’ pained look. Joking about it made it easier than talking about it.

“Sorry, Luthor humor. I know you’re trying, Jess. I’m just...tired.”

“I know it hasn’t been easy for you..and Kara. But you’ve done some amazing things for others, including Supergirl. The radiation controlled proto-environment suit you made saved her. The Kryptonite Shield you developed...”

Jess’ words trailed off because while Jess might know some technical things about what Lena had been up to in the basement of L-Corp, she didn’t know everything. Lena sat back down and ran a hand through her hair, the displaced anger she had felt falling away as she took a sip of something colder than what she felt. It wasn’t Jess’ fault for wanting to help in a winless situation.

“What I ended up doing is helping my brother Lex use my own technology to harm Supergirl at a time when she needed me the most.”

She could talk about Supergirl as if she weren’t talking about Kara, as if she hadn’t seen a superhero almost die in front of her too many times to count, as if she had been unaware that she loved both. The wine chilled her mouth.

“What I ended up doing is trusting everyone around me when I shouldn’t have.”

Here she stopped for a second and tried not to let the misguided feelings get the best of her but she couldn’t make her brain work differently given the experiences she had. It was as if the muscle memory had no practice to give it meaning or the phantom limb was missing a body. The disconnect between what her brain knew now and what she felt threw everything off just enough to wonder what she would do next. It was scary, in a way, to not be able to predict her own feelings or figure out the reasons why. She had spent months with the false knowledge that she and Kara Danvers were friends while she was separately helping out National City’s resident superhero. Her body and her feelings acted like those two things were fact. Now, she was left with the phantom limb of loving a memory that didn’t exist in reality. Lena had played with fire and she had been burned.

“And what I ended up doing is losing Kara.”

***

_It was a sunny Monday in National City and the shining glass enclosed CatCo building was alive with energy, deadlines and news and the business of telling stories that mattered was in full swing. Lena found herself standing in James’ office wondering what she had missed. She had just returned from visiting Sam and Ruby in Metropolis and was eager to get back into the swing of things. The trip had been a nice way to catch up after everything that had happened last year with Sam and with Reign. All of that seemed so far away right now and while Lena was exceptionally sharp at the details, there was a fuzziness that lingered. She chalked it up to a week of reviewing financials with Sam, evening dinners and movies, Ruby’s endless soccer games. It felt like a mini-retreat of sorts and maybe she still had vacation brain. A little cloudy, a little hazy. The weekend back in her penthouse apartment was spent napping, sorting email priorities from CatCo and at L-Corp, reviewing Eve’s progress notes on their joint lab work, and trying to settle back into her life in National City._

_Lena found herself staring out the tall windows in James’ office, the blue sky holding her eye until she felt something warm against her neck. Her chartreuse shirt was cool against her skin but she definitely felt warmer than seemed right in the climate controlled office. At that moment, she heard voices and turned to see James and Kara coming into the office. Her friend was in a casual gray sleeveless dress with her hair in a bun and smiling at her like she had been gone for too long. Kara pulled her into a hug and didn’t let go, hard enough to take her breath away._

_They exchanged pleasantries about the trip and Kara’s smile never wavering until Lena felt James’ hand on her back. At that, Kara glanced down and when she looked back up at Lena, there was something unreadable on her face._

_“Well, I’ll leave you two alone. There’s an article about an alien summit I need to write.”_

_There was something strange about being back here at CatCo and Lena couldn’t quite place why. It was like she was watching herself, removed and distant at the same time. Perhaps too much time away and too many glasses of wine with Sam had made her feel a little disconnected. As she stood in the office with James on a regular day back at work running two companies at once, Lena watched Kara walk out and wondered why it seemed to hurt._


	3. Unukalhai

When one door closes, another opens or so the saying goes. The question becomes less about where you’ve come from than where you’re going. If Lena Luthor could answer that simple question right now, it’d all be so much easier. She had erased every memory of Kara Danvers as Supergirl in order to save both of them from Lex. That was a fact. That was easy. Simple science put into action by her own hand, the forced removal of memories from her brain through a mix of bittersweet, effective hydrolase doctored up by her own design. The now L-Corp trademarked formula ( _L-immemores_ ) contained a certain amount of protease, a pinch of glycosidase, a dash of phosphatase, and just a touch of TALENS encoded with the exact sequence of her phospholamban. It was a one-two knockout solution to make her stubborn brain forget what her hopeful heart wanted. Lena wiped out what it meant to know and love Kara Zor-El.

Now, of course, with the help of Lex’s big dose of reality, all the science in the world couldn’t stop the truth from washing over Lena. Finding out that Kara Danvers was Supergirl in a brand new way after forgetting that fact hurt. Physically, emotionally, mentally. It wasn’t rational. She could never say it was rational to feel betrayed that no one told her this truth. She couldn’t fault others, including Kara, for not disclosing a national secret when she herself had already known but chose to cleave it clean away. Nothing about how she felt was rational. If it were, she wouldn’t be three quarters of the way through a bottle of wine on a workday with Jess looking at her like she was crazy.

“Lena…”

She just closed her eyes at her name and shook her head.

“I am well aware, Jess.”

Lena paused before her voice grew quiet. It wasn’t a secret she and Kara had been in love. Jess knew. The entire city knew. That wasn’t the issue, that wasn’t the problem she had tried to solve for when she emptied her head of other truths far more endangering.

“But I had to keep Kara safe from Lex. Anything I knew about her and her friendship with Supergirl...he would use to hurt her and I couldn’t have that.”

It wasn’t Lena’s place to tell anyone else that Kara was Supergirl and she had gone to extraordinary means to prevent that. The irony wasn’t lost on her. Jess’ voice was quiet.

“What are the side effects? Is there any lasting damage?”

Lena took another sip from her wine glass and pondered those questions. She well knew the side effects of loving Kara, she could list out some of her favorites in great detail. Lena could physically feel subtle sparks from Kara’s fingertips when they traced their way up her spine. She could physically feel gentle warmth from Kara’s eyes when they looked at her with desire and followed the curves of her bare body. She could see how the atoms on the surface of Kara’s skin reacted to the good and the bad of what a superhero had gone through. She could see the way Kara glowed golden when she was happy. And Lena could taste the stars on her tongue when Kara closed her eyes and let go, the salt whisper filling her mouth like nothing else on this earth ever could. So yes, Lena was well aware of the side effects of Kara Zor-El and how much she had missed, how much she had lost. She was starting to become just as familiar with the damage done by forgetting.

“The side effects of _L-immemores_ reversal haven’t been fully...determined yet. Low grade headaches. Slight fever. Balance issues. Occasional shaking of extremities. Irregular heart rate at random intervals. Nothing life threatening, however.”

She spoke like a scientist observing a patient rather than someone talking about her own experiences. It was easier this way.

“Lena..”

Jess’ worried voice made her look over and purse her lips.

“We’ve established that you’ll be using my first name on a regular basis but you shouldn’t wear it out.”

Jess just stared at her until Lena quirked a corner of her mouth and raised an eyebrow at her new Chief of Staff. Jess let out a breath and shook her head.

“Let me guess, this is more of your Luthor humor coming out.”

Lena sat back and crossed her legs.

“At this point, my humor is the only thing keeping people alive.”

What she didn’t want to say out loud, what Lena was starting to realize, was that the damage done by science was deeper than she thought. Irrational thoughts, irrational anger, irrational everything when Lena had kept herself sane and steady by being smarter than that, by not giving in to what drove the Luthors mad. She was well aware of what she was capable of but didn't. And she was sure of what loss could make her do. So she shared something safe, the truth, kind of, more or less or at least what she hypothesized.

“I miscalculated the dosage and the duration. It was more _L-immemores_ solution than needed and the loss episode lasted longer than I anticipated.”

Lena held up her glass of wine and swirled it a little, the light from outside her office refracting in the liquid she was accustomed to using to forget both the good and the bad. The problem had been her math, even after all of her best thinking, the numbers hadn’t quite added up exactly. She forgot to add in the most important variable in her own equation - human error. Hers.

“I miscalculated the effects a sudden dephosphorylation reversal event would have on a suppressed neuroendocrine system.”

When put that way, Lex’s disclosure of the exact truth that she had tried to cleave from her brain didn’t sound as violent as it felt. The jarring, painful flooding of proteins and chemicals and dendritic regrowth of memories falling back into place after so long was a shock to her system. Her hand shook a little as she brought the glass to her lips for the last swallow. Lena stared out into the blue sky of a National City day and wondered what would come next.

“And I miscalculated how much the micro-moments of loss _trans tempus_ would hurt.”

***

_The bright golden letters spelled out another woman's name: **C A T C O**_

_She felt like a stranger in her own company because it really wasn’t hers. Yes, technically, Lena owned CatCo, but she didn’t run it, not really. She was an outsider and always had been. James was fully capable, the staff were well-functioning, it was a business that didn’t really need her presence. It was why she had stepped away more and more, quietly withdrawing from meetings and visits, letting the company go back to normal. Nothing Lena Luthor ever touched could be normal and she knew this. So she sank further into finding a cure for what ails the human heart, helping James with her Harun-El as penance for what the black rock had done to others, what she had caused, the unintended consequences of trying to play with immortality and there were many. Technology, she trusted, but something was off in her numbers and she couldn’t quite figure it out. It was frustrating and maddening and there was no one to share the weight she carried. That was why she came here this morning, why standing in a bustling business felt like the right thing to do when nothing else worked._

_CatCo didn’t need her, but she hadn’t come here for the company. She came here for Kara. Her friend, someone she missed like..a phantom limb. The analogy was a strange one to use, but its what popped into her head. Kara was doing her job chasing down her brother and telling the truth about what it meant to be a stranger in one’s own land. They had drifted apart little by little, replacing time together with others not out of anything she could name. Supergirl had drifted in, taking Kara’s place as Lena’s work was needed in her service, crafting a suit to save the superhero from her greatest threat. Kryptonite. And now with Lex on the loose and James’ life in the balance, Lena had relied on Supergirl more and more. That meant she was separated from one of her best friends, all because Lena couldn’t tell the truth about the Harun-El and about Lex Luthor. He had always been one of her earliest, weakest spots and that had not changed over time as much as she wished it had. Lena took a deep breath and remembered how she felt when Dreamer exposed herself on camera in this very building and her conversation with Querl Dox last night was close in her mind._

_*_

_“I feel so paralyzed right now because I’m not able to...I’m..not able to move forward. I can’t find Lex. I can’t fix James.”_

_Querl Dox had sat down to face her in her office of white, a refuge of sorts as if there could ever be one for Lena. He looked at her and spoke carefully, in his way._

_“I understand that you have been betrayed by many people in your life, Lena. I know that feeling too. But if you want to be trusted and accepted, then you must also trust. It will be risky. But I can tell you that if you close all doors, you will have a 99% chance of sorrow.”_

_*_

_Now, in CatCo, her head turned instinctively and her eyes fell on her friend. For a moment, Kara didn’t see her and Lena could tell she was thinking about something else, her mind occupied, until she turned. As staff hustled and bustled around them, Kara caught her eye and that’s when Lena felt it. It was strange and she usually chalked it up to summer, but she felt warmth on her face when Kara looked at her. It had happened more and more or maybe Lena was just starting to notice. It was a physical thing, a sensation, a tangible feeling and she had no explanation for it. She took a deep breath and tucked that information away as her body relaxed. It was a Thursday and she was in National City and she was here to visit her friend. Everything was fine._

_“I’m sorry I was so short with you. You were just trying to do your job.”_

_They walked out onto the balcony and the bright sky reflected off of the gleaming steel and glass high above the city. Here, Lena could breathe a little as Kara’s voice softened into something familiar._

_“Friendship is the most important job. And I was so focused on my article I forgot what really matters.”_

_The way Kara said this, how she looked at Lena, reminded her of another time in this same building. The memory was a little hazy, but it was when Lena first bought CatCo and she and Kara had one of their first arguments as colleagues. Kara had been slipping away, making excuses, keeping things from her, disregarding her direct work requests. Lena tried to put the pieces back together again, but the details slipped away too. She blamed the stress and the worry for the way her brain seemed to lose little pieces of moments like these, with Kara. It was as if their years of friendship blurred in places, fuzzy in others. Lena focused on the here and now instead, leaning against the balcony._

_“No Kara. The truth is even if you’d been standing right next to me when Lex escaped, I really wouldn’t have let you be there for me.”_

_She glanced over at Kara, hoping for a glimmer of understanding._

_“What do you mean? Why?"_

_Lena let her eyes turn back to the city and look down, the details of the street below and the buildings fading away as she spoke._

_“Because I’m the one that’s keeping secrets.”_

_She felt warmth on her face again as she gathered the courage to say it outloud, not able to look Kara in the eye just yet._

_“Eve wasn’t the only one working with Lex...I...I was working with him too.”_

_Her eyes betrayed her just as her words spelled it all out. She heard Kara take a deep breath and was afraid of what would come next so she kept talking, laying out the truth about how Lex had tricked her, played upon her emotions as he always had. All those years Lex had earned her love as a young child all to manipulate her time and time again and she fell for it like someone with a weakness she couldn’t fix. She had kept this from Kara because acknowledging it outloud meant acknowledging a truth that burned through every box she ever made to keep the things she loved, including maybe herself, safe from the Luthors._

_“I was weak and I will never forgive myself for that.”_

_Lena waited, briefly, for Kara to say something, anything. She couldn't bear to look at Kara so she filled the space with what she feared most, trying to gather herself back together again as the words rushed out of her mouth._

_“I can only imagine what you think of me, Kara. I don’t blame you.”_

_Instead, she felt arms pull her in and it felt like something that had been missing fell back into place. Warmth, yes, but also something else, a galvanic response where Kara’s hand held the back of her neck, cheek against her own. It was like a door opening, calling her to step in. She had missed Kara plain and simple and now that she was at her most vulnerable, she realized what relief truly felt like in the arms of her friend._

_“No, no..you are not weak. You are a brilliant, kind-hearted beautiful soul.”_

_Lena felt herself crying, unable to hold back the tears. So few people ever said these kinds of words to her, held her like she wasn’t a pariah or cursed or worse. Kara Danvers was the strongest person she knew, pulling Lena into her orbit and her arms so easily, it felt like coming home. She had missed this, this connection between them, and now that the truth was out, her deep dark secret of family betrayal and clandestine, desperate science in the name of finding a miracle for humans, for James, Lena felt like she could breathe again. Kara’s words washed over her._

_“I’m so sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell me.”_

_She didn’t need apologies from Kara and yet they kept coming even when arms let her go and Lena wished they hadn’t._

_“I am so sorry.”_

_The way Kara was looking at her, everything she felt inside had come tumbling out like secrets unlocked and it was a relief. Even as tears ran down her face, Lena reached back out, not wanting to let go of Kara just yet, wanting to feel ..something solid..under her hands. It grounded her, made everything feel safe. Somewhere in the back of her mind, as she stood there trying to gather herself, Lena knew she had felt this feeling before, of being safe. With Kara..but not Kara. She couldn’t place it, couldn’t understand why she felt like this had happened before or something like it. She didn’t believe in coincidences so there must be something else. Her memory flickered but nothing caught. Somewhere deep inside, she had put something precious in a box, locked it so tight that even she couldn’t find a way to open it. With Kara’s hands on her shoulder, Lena Luthor knew there was something wrong inside of her head and once they found Lex, she was going to get to the bottom of what was missing._

_Kara was the key._


	4. Messier 16

It was helpful to have all the sound in the world fall away. It allowed her to focus. It allowed her to block out everything else that called for her attention. She could pretend she was somewhere else outside of herself, removed and empty. Lena Luthor had made sure her office of white had every technological trick in the book to make the world go away when she wanted. Sound dampening, sound absorption, sound canceling. Windows that doubled as nightshades, graphene filters sliding into place in absorb of all. And a few other things that were patented and secret and stealthy. There was a market for the kind of technology she dreamed about and made reality of course, but she saved a few items for herself and no one else. Lena replicated the darkest parts of space here on earth for a reason.

Now, she was alone, finally, after she promised Jess that she was _fine_ and wouldn’t do anything drastic like open another bottle of wine or throw herself off the balcony. Besides, if she did, Supergirl would surely catch her. She had tried to joke with that last bit, but Jess had looked horrified. Instead, she cajoled her brightest employee and got herself out of this makeshift therapy session with the truth: Lena just told Jess she needed some space. Who wouldn't after what she did to herself? Reality was that her hands were beginning to shake from talking about, forgetting about, remembering Kara and all the secrets they couldn’t keep between them. She had closed the door behind her new chief of staff with instructions to deal with rumors across CatCo and L-Corp staff about new background checks and tighter security. Lena herself had ordered it, not out of fear that her dead brother would rise, but out of her own wariness. She wasn’t sure who she could trust anymore, including herself.

It was easier when she was alone to try to suss out what was real and what was her altered brain’s version of the truth. She loved Kara Danvers. She loved Supergirl. She loved Kara Zor-El. What really happened was she forgot that she loved them all and fell back in love with one until she was betrayed by another. What could have happened is that she could have loved them all, completely and totally, from the moment she met them. What also happened is that all of them knew she had loved them and none of them told her the truth. What did happen is that Lena Luthor met Kara Zor-El time and time again and never truly forgot her, not deep down in her bones and in her cells and in her stubborn heart. As a result, her brilliant cunning mind had betrayed itself and all it really felt like was that Kara and every version of her had lied to Lena. How could Kara deny them more time together when there was so very little left? None of it made sense, but her brain wasn’t helping.

Lena sat at her desk, palms pressed against a white surface to still the room from the spin. She promised Jess she wouldn’t open another bottle, but that said nothing of the scotch that was already open. She needed her brain to stop playing tricks on her. Everyone was safe, everyone was alive, except for Lex, and all Lena needed to do was recover from a big dose of _L-immemores_ and get over such things. Such things being memories of feelings and feelings of memories felt. About Kara and about what she herself had done and why. She knew the side effects of the drug she created. She knew the science of forgetting was imprecise while the pain of remembering was sharp. Lena was no stranger to how illogical and irrational loss could make a person. She just needed to be better, think harder, solve the problem, Lena. To do that, she needed to disappear completely and find another door to open, another key to cure what made her own human heart mortal.

The afternoon in National City was ticking by outside her window and she honestly didn’t care about the business of being a Luthor for once. In total manufactured silence, in total darkness, Lena could test out her newest, most recent tech. If she couldn’t solve the problem that made her heart and mind weak, she could at least try to change the future with little tweaks to the present, minor adjustments to the past, small changes slipped into the system and baked into the numbers. Lena Luthor was about to test whether she could become the butterfly effect in human form. Eyes closed. Technology engaged. Countdown begun.

_One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi._

***

_In the darkness under the meeting hall, the voice of Agent Liberty carried and the cheers with him thundered overhead. Mercy Graves picked up a shard of glowing green and set it into the cradle as Otis looked on. Poor dumb Otis, still hopelessly in love with Lena Luthor and chasing her still. With a click in place and a whir of electricity, the lead dispersal device that the DEO had locked away after the Daxamites attack now came to life. It was the same device that Lillian Luthor tried to use against Supergirl. The same device that Lena Luthor had perfected and redirected. The same device that Lex Luthor had dreamed would bring his Superman out of the sky and closer to the ground within reach. It made sense, now, that the thing we love is the that which we destroy. Lena could see how a superhero could falter, fooled by love and brought down by hate._

_There were as many possibilities as there were impossibilities. The world contained multitudes, this was no secret and Lena knew a thing or two about secrets. The world also contained Kryptonite and here was Mercy again, stealing a vial of it to advance the plot of a Luthor. She never trusted the way Mercy could entangle herself with Lex and Lex was never far from her mind. How could she forget what her brother was capable of when he had lost what he loved. His hero never fell from the stars no matter how hard Lex tried. She knew the apple wouldn’t fall far from the tree so she tried out every possible version of what it could feel like to be at an event horizon. Lena spun around the point at which the past, present, and future all came together._

_One event could be that Supergirl was saved by flinging her far far from earth, out of a poisoned atmosphere where she was dying and into a darkness that never ended and a silence that was maddening. That event, however, could only happen if the hero wasn’t already irradiated, if she wasn’t already too weak, there must be something Alex could do. But there was, objectively, across the entire quantifiable universe, nothing a sister could do. Because of Alex Kara Danvers became Supergirl. Who became because of Kara Zor-El. Who became because she survived in space before, had outlasted the Phantom Zone. Lena was sure that the only person who could see how the hot of hot burned blue on Kara was her. All of that becoming made Kara glow, it made her golden, it made her spark. Lena could taste the lightning on her breath. It was magic. It was a miracle. It made her hands shake at the possibility._

_The call came familiar and frantic. One option could be that she ignored the number on her phone, the burn of repeated exposure to Alex Danvers could sting. The other option could have been that they had called a truce in the name of love, in the name of Kara. Lena loving Kara who was loved by Alex could put Kara at risk which could put Supergirl at risk. And stubborn, hopeful Kara felt the reverse, as if Lena hadn’t survived her family and all that betrayal out of something other than sheer spite. Not everyone wore a cape down their back so she was still outfitted for the work day with a dress to match the muted color of lapis lazuli in Kara’s eyes. Not that she thought of such things when her heart pounded in worry. Her heels clicked down the stairs of the DEO and her purse held technology she could trust. She tried to still her heart from beating too loud, assuming that such things could be heard by superhearing and there was no time now for that. Supergirl was in trouble and Alex Danvers had called her in desperation because she could be a one in a million chance that would work. Lena Luthor could be the reason Supergirl lived instead of leading to her ruin._

_“Where is she?”_

_She wished her voice hadn’t sounded like that to Alex, like she was afraid. There was never time to waste according to one path and there was all the time in the world according to another. She walked with her eyes forward like she hadn’t spent the last months, a year or more trying to find ways to save Kara Zor-El in whatever form she took. Lena simulated every known possible threat and this time, she factored in a variable that needed to be accounted for with Lex always in the picture and Lillian a wild card. The L-factor. Her own effect and that of everyone who ever knew what a Luthor could do when they set their mind to it, including two people she hated loving in spite of herself. It was why she was ready for the day when the dispersal device her brother dreamed of and she made a reality seeded the air with Kryptonite and there was no one else to save the last daughter of Krypton but her._

_After all, Lena was told that it meant a tremendous amount that she was always there when they needed her the most. People underestimated her, she cared. She cared enough to dream up a suit that would keep Kara safe from anything that could make her mortal. She cared enough to challenge the idea that immortality was not for human hearts only. She cared enough to wonder if it was possible to use the properties of a magic stone to buy her enough time to live in a world where Kara never got old and never got sick and never left. The Luthor factor in this whole equation would whisper in her ear that it was not only possible, but she was the only one in the quantifiable universe and in the limitless multiverse to make the numbers add up just right. Lena might be the answer, but Kara was the only one with the key._

_Lena reached into her purse, fingers fumbling to find a solid piece of ultra-classified L-Corp technology: a radiation-controlled proto-environment housed in a vacuum-sealed mechanical exoskeleton contained in a spring-loaded two-millimeter disk. To be exact. She kept walking as Querl Dox calculated the odds that she, a Luthor, could save the future over and over again. She was just a woman trying to make a name for herself outside of her family. They finally came to a stop and Lena didn't look up until there was nothing else to do but that even when she knew it would hurt. No room and no walls should ever keep Kara prisoner and yet in the medical bay, a prison held Supergirl. Lena took a sharp breath at the sight, burning green veins poisoned someone who fell from the stars and it was killing her. First person. Lena. Third person. Kara. There was never a promise of a cure, just enough time to find one. She would do whatever was needed to save a hero and so would everyone else in the room -- Alex, J'onn, Querl Dox - they wanted to do the same but she was the one out of multitudes who actually did it.  
_

_Her hand settled enough to set the last hope disk where she knew a superhero’s heart beat true. Here, in this room, with her eyes closed and cape under her like tired wings, Supergirl looked like someone else. Someone softer, someone more like a woman who Lena could wake up in the morning with and wonder how in the world. How? The Kryptonite threatened to take what could have been or what was. It didn’t matter now, Lena Luthor wasn't about to lose someone who had saved her in more ways than she could count._

_She could only hold her breath as her technology unfurled itself and sunk into skin impervious to anything except an exact replica of the cell receptors of a Kryptonian. Phosphorylation built into the machine that could never love Kara like she did. Binding, not cleaving. Finding, not leaving. Lena knew those numbers by heart, the right mix of synthetic alien enzyme to match someone strong enough to love her when no one else could. She had built the L-factor into even that mixture of exoskeleton adhesive, encoding the secret to how a Luthor could save a Super enough to matter when everything fell apart._

_Lena Luthor watched what she had built with her own shaky hands and her own brilliant mind and her own desperate heart fully enclose Supergirl. She had to believe this would work long enough outlast the side effects of loving Kara and losing her. If she couldn’t change what she forgot, maybe she could change how it felt to remember when the time came. Somewhere in the future, she felt herself counting.  
_

_One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi._

*******

**_Wake up!_ **

Lena Luthor gasped at the built-in alarm coming from inside her head, lungs sucking in air as all the light and all the noise rushed back in, her office blazing white in the light of day. Her eyes blinked and burned dry and hot in penance for playing with what was real and what wasn’t. She already had a tendency to slide into darkness when the world was too bright with Kara in it. Lena sat back in her chair and looked around her, noting the details for her records. For science. She was in her office, she was in L-Corp, she was in National City. There was a glass of scotch in her hand, untouched by her lips. There was a phone ringing with Jess’ name on the screen. There was work to attend to and all her head could do was pound at the wine and the truth. Everything was a human trial in Lena’s world and betrayal and heartbreak was nasty business, even if none of it was real.


End file.
